Chapter 11

Neo-Behaviorism

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Neo-Behaviorism: the modification of Watson's Behaviorism that allwowed for the experimental analysis of operationally defined variables related to cognitive states and emphasized the study of learning along with the use of animal models for human behavior.

ZEITGEIST (p. 317)

• The United States from 1914 to 1941
  • USA not a world power in 1914
  • April 6, 1917, USA enters World War I
    • small Army grew
    • psychologists had pivotal role (selection and assignment of troops)
    • ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) is a legacy
      • Covers
        • General science
        • Arithmetic reasoning
        • Word knowledge
        • Paragraph comprehension
        • Mathematics knowledge
        • Electronics information
        • Auto and shop information
        • Mechanical comprehension
        • Assembling objects
        • Verbal expression
      • It is the first step in enlistment
  • Wilson and the Fourteen Points
    • Not received well by Allies at end of World War I
    • Recommended:
      • end to secret alliances,
      • full freedom of the seas,
      • the lifting of trade barriers,
      • better treatment of native colonial populations,
      • specific readjustments of territory to prewar conditions,
      • and the establishment of the League of Nations
  • Versailles Treaty and Germany (Reparations)
    • Imposed servere conditions on post-war Germany
  • Social Changes in USA
    • Women working
      • the war opened up many occupations to women for the first time
      • the war stimulated the migration of African-Americans from the South to cities in the North, Midwest, and the West of the USA
    • Women voting
      • 19th Amendment
    • Prohibition beginning and ending
      • 18th and 21st Amendments
    • Mechanization, highways
    • Roaring 20s
      • Speakeasys
      • Organized crime
  • The Great Depression
    • Stock Market Crash 1929
    • High Unenployment
    • Full Recovery aided by start of World War II

Learning Objective: Discuss how World War I led to major social changes in the United States during and after the war.

PREVIEW (p. 318)

• A slow-moving neobehaviorist movement gradually emerged from Watson’s ideas (see chapter 10).
• Neobehaviorism promoted the use of animal models for studying learning and freely extrapolated results from rats, monkeys, and pigeons to humans.
• Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism posited expectancies and cognitive maps in humans and rats.
• He and Hull used mazes extensively to investigate learning.
• Tolman’s S-S approach saw animals as goal directed.
• Hull saw his animals as automatically responding to the variables that controlled learning in a straight S-R fashion.
• Hull looked for a hypothethico-deductive approach that would ultimately yield a universal theory of learning.
• Tolman’s theory was never fully developed. Mostly, he concentrated on disproving Hullian theory without offering a palatable cognitive alternative.
• Behaviorism evolved into two types of Neobehaviorism: mediational and radical.
• Mediational versions such as Tolman’s and Hull’s permitted the existence of unobservable or intervening variables as long as they could be operationally defined, a borrowing from modern physics.
• Radical Behaviorism dispensed with any type of unobservable variables, labeling them as mentalistic, and instead adopted a selectionist methodology where the survival of a particular behavior depended on the consequences that followed it.
• Reinforcers selected for survival of behaviors while punishers selected for their extinction.
• Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism itself survives to the present, but mostly as a small, self-isolated subfield.
• Nevertheless, its accomplishments have been many starting with the operant chamber (Skinner Box) and the cumulative recorder.
• Applied behavior analysis moved Radical Behaviorism out of the laboratory and into homes, classroom, businesses, and hospitals.
• Its discoveries of schedules of reinforcement, the partial reinforcement extinction effect, and shaping are covered in all introductory psychology texts.
• Less influential have been Skinner’s contributions to the study of language acquisition and his utopian desire to transform the world for the better using Radical Behaviorism.

INTRODUCTION (p. 319)

• Functionalist attacks on Structuralism made psychologists look for a new definition for psychology
• The introspective search for the part or functions of the mind appeared to be a dead end
• Psychology was becoming more scientific and less philosophical
• In Europe Gestalt Psychology and Freud's Psychodynamic psychology were winning converts
• In the United States Neobehaviorism slowly emerged and concentrated on:
  • learned behaviors
  • animal models (eventually mostly rats and pigeons)
  • practically eliminating references to mental life
• Neo-Behaviorism was not an overnight success, but by 1930 came to dominate American psychology for the next 30 years.
• Types of Behaviorism Today
  • Neobehaviorism changed psychology
  • Today there are very few psychologists who are not behaviorists by one of the definitions below
    • Methodological--nearly all psychologists, believe in the scientific method, include behavior in their definition of psychology
    • Mediational--most restrictive, only accept operationally defined units (Hull and Tolman, but in very different ways). This type of behaviorism is extinct.
    • Radical--less restrictive, observable behaviors can be public or private (Skinner). This type of behaviorism, sometimes call behavioral analysis, is alive and well.

THREE NEOBEHAVIORISTS (p. 321)

• Watson's "revolution" proceeded slowly
• Neobehaviorism replaced Watson's behaviorism but was not a single movement
• Tolman, Hull, and Skinner each moved on from Watson's behaviorism albeit in very different ways.
• Tolman studied rat behavior as a model for human behavior
• Hull saw Tolman's theories a too introspective.
• Hull wished to operationalize the psychology of learning without any reference to cognition.
• Skinner rejected Tolman's and Hull's approaches proposing Radical Behaviorism
• The "radical" part was that the environment included the environment "inside the skin"

Learning Objective: Describe the types of behaviorism that existed in the past and compare to the types that currently exist.

• operationism: the idea that science is best understood as a public, operationally defined enterprise in which phenomena may only be analyzed via methods that yield concrete results.

NEOBEHAVIORISM (p. 321)

• Edward Chase Tolman
  • Studied at Harvard with Yerkes
  • Puzzled about how classes and research used different methods (e.g., introspection vs. experimentation)
  • Not an introspector
  • Converted to Watson's behaviorism and was glad to leave introspection behind
  • Studied with Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka (see chapter 12)
  • Began to teach at the University of California
  • First to popularize the use of rats as models for human learning
  • Molar definitions of behavior
    • (e.g., maze running)
      • Unlike Watson, Tolman believed that animals and humans learned mazes regardless of whether they walked, waded, swam, or drove them. In other words, maze running was its own thing and it did not matter what motor responses were involved.
      • In other words, rats that first ran a maze and later swam it made fewer errors in the swimming condition. The same pattern was seen in another group of rats that first swam and then ran the maze.
  • Expectancies (e.g., Tinkelpaugh, 1928)
    • Tinkelpaugh showed monkeys food items, hid them, and then had the monkey retrieve them after a short period
    • When the monkey knew the food item hidden (e.g., lettuce or banana), they retrived it with any ado
    • But when Tinkelpaugh secretely switched banana for lettuce the following happened:
      • "Subject rushes to proper cup and picks it up. Extends hand toward lettuce. Stops. Looks around on floor. Looks in, under, around cup. Glances at other cup. Looks back at screen. Looks under and around self. Looks and shrieks at any observer present. Walks away, leaving lettuce untouched on floor. Time, 10–33 seconds."
    • In other words, the monkeys had developed an expectancy, an unobservable cognitive state

expectancy: an internal state in which an organism anticipates an event based upon prior learning trials.

• Cognitive Maps (isomorphic representations of real world in the brain (a Gestalt idea)
  • Isomorphic means point-to-point
  • Good examples are 2D map projections
    • They are point-to-point representations of the 3D world globe
    • Map projections: Video
    • All of the projections shown are point-to-point representations
  • The Gestalt psychologists (see chapter 12) wanted to create an isomorphism between the brain and the real world. They did not succeed.
  • Tolman's cognitive map idea, however, was influential on modern cognitive psychology (see chapter 14)
• Tolman, Ritchie, and Kalish (1946) mazes
  • That research was influential in showing that, when given a chance, rats avoided taking the old and convoluted path the food and instead ran directly to where the food was.
  • The graphic below show the original route the rats were required to take
  • What all of the maze parts were removed, the rats ran a straight line to the food

• What cognitive maps do you possess and use? If I were standing in front of you, I'd ask: Tell me how to get from SAU to Walmart AND I'd ask someone who lives in Magnolia and someone who does not to describe their cognitive map.
  • So here's my cognitive map, from Peace Hall,
    • go South on East Lane,
    • make a left on E. University,
    • drive until you come to US 82 Bypass (having stopped at the Stop Sign at Pearce St. earlier).
    • There's a Stop Sign at US 82 Bypass too.
    • Make a right.
    • When you come to the stoplight at E. North St. (westbound) and Warnock Springs Rd (eastbound). You have a decision to make.
    • You can make a left, drive past Chicken Express and take a right to Walmare.
    • Or, you can go straight (South) until you reach the next stop light and make a left into the Walmart parking lot.
    • Or you can turn on your mapping app (another way the internet has made life easy:
      • Google maps gives several different routes:

Purposive Behaviorism: Tolman’s version of Neobehaviorism that emphasized goal-directed activity in animals and humans while only relying on objective behavioral data.

Intervening Variables: unobservable variables such as internal states or cognitions assumed to influence behavior.

Operationism: the idea that science is best understood as a public, operationally defined enterprise in which phenomena may only be analyzed via methods that yield concrete results. (Modern Physics and Operationism)

• Latent Learning
  • Tolman and Honzik (1930)
    • They trained rats in a complex maze in three groups
      • one reinforced with food every time
      • one never reinforced with food
      • one reinforced with food on day 11 of the study
    • Results
      • Notice that the group fed on day 11 immediately dropped its number of error
      • Tolman and Honzik argued that those rats had already learned the maze
      • The food, they argued, changed the situation
      • Now, those rats had motivation to make fewer errors
      • Tolman argued that latent learning had taken place
        • meaning, the rats had already learned the maze
        • the food just provided them the motivation to get to the goal box
      • Tolman argued for S-S psychology in place of Hull's S-R psychology
        • In other words, he took the decisive role of reinforcement out of the learning process

Learning Objective: Explain the logic behind Tolman’s use of intervening variables.

• intervening variable: unobservable variables such as internal states or cognitions assumed to influence behavior.

Learning Objective 4: Explain the logic behind Tolman’s use of intervening variables.

THEN AND NOW (p. 326)

Latent Learning and Cognitive Maps

• Jensen (2006) noted that nearly all of the general psychology textbooks he surveyed gave incomplete and misleading accounts of the current status of latent learning and cognitive maps. The history of latent learning shows that “There was no resolution at all
• . . . The debate ended because it became clear to psychological researchers and theorists that given the hypothetical nature of the variables involved in latent learning, no empirical solution was likely” (p. 195).
• He argued that most current textbooks do not tell students that the issue of latent learning was essentially abandoned.
• Instead, those texts uncritically point to Tolman’s cognitive map as the only solution left standing.
• Later he notes that “although the cognitive map metaphor might retain its appeal, a close examination of the metaphor as a scientific explanation for human and animal navigation through spatial environments exposes substantial weaknesses” (p. 204).
• He argued that other historical and contemporary explanations for latent learning do exist; they are just no longer covered in introductory psychology texts.
• Ultimately, Jensen is concerned with the pervasive effect of such historical misinformation upon new psychology students, especially those who eventually major in the discipline.

BORDER WITH COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE (P. 326)

Modern Physics

• The many discoveries in modern physics leading up to the development of the atomic bomb required the use of operationism.
• The many subatomic particles created by bombarding the nuclei of atoms were first described as intervening variables.
• Many experiments were run to determine if those unseen particles actually existed.
• Those particles that followed the paths predicted by atomic theory were deemed to exist despite never actually being observed themselves.
• The rise of modern physics occurred at around the same time as the emergence of Neobehaviorism and influenced it markedly.
• In psychology, the intervening variables that predicted particular behaviors were also viewed as real despite being unobservable.
• Percy Bridgman, a physicist and the author of an influential book, The Logic of Modern Physics (1928), was partly responsible for leading psychologists to imitate physicists.
• During the 20th century, physics was the quintessential model for how any science should operate and most psychologists aspired to make their science resemble it.

• Clark Hull
  • Sickly child (polio, typhoid fever) but gifted with mechanical ability
  • Early on studied aptitude testing, hypnosis, suggestibility, and verbal learning
  • Later, at Yale he was inspired by Newton to create hypothetico-deductive theory for psychology

Hypothetico-Deductive system: a system using logic derived from a small set of given truths used to deduce new, derived, and logically consistent statements. After, those deductions are tested experimentally. Statements experimentally confirmed are kept and the others are discarded.

• Hull (1943) and Hull (1952) were his two main versions of his theory
• Hull's System
  • Stimulus variables
    • N = number of reinforced trials-->_SH_R
    • C_D = deprivation level-->D
    • S = stimulus intensity-->V
    • W = size of the reinforcer-->K
  • Intervening variables
    • 1. _SH_R--Habit strength (explains effects of practice)
      
    • 2. D--Drive (provides mechanism for reinforcement)
      
    • 3. V--Stimulus Intensity Dynamism (explains differences in environment)
      
    • 4. K--Incentive (added in 1952, explains differences due to size of reinforcement)
      
    • 5. _SE_R --Reaction Potential (the left hand side of equation = behavior)
      
    • 6. I_R<--Reactive Inhibition (explains extinction)
    • 7. _SI_R--Conditioned Inhibition (explains spontaneous recovery)
      
    • 7. _SL_R--Threshold (provides definition of acquisition)
      
    • 8. _SO_R--Oscillation (explains individual differences)
  • He wanted to make psychology as "scientific" as physics
    • He wrote (1935):

    "Scientific theory in its best sense consists of the strict logical deduction from definite postulates of what should be observed under specified conditions. If the deductions are lacking or are logically invalid, there is no theory; if the deductions involve conditions of observation which are impossible of attainment, the theory is metaphysical rather than scientific; and if the deduced phenomenon is not observed when the conditions are fulfilled, the theory is false."
    
    

  • His system was complex
    • Three types of variables: stimulus; organismic or intervening; and response
      • The four stimulus variables: number of reinforced trials, stimulus deprivation level, stimulus intensity, and size of the reinforcement (that last one added in the 1952 version) were measurable
      • The stimulus variables were linked respectively to: habit strength (H), drive (D), stimulus intensity dynamism (V), and incentive (K)
      • The response variables, the ones actually measured were: response latency (t). amplitude (A), number of responses until extinction (n), and response probability (p)
      • Hull's System (graphic)
    • Why did his system change?
      • Crespi (1942) discovered that rats would run a maze faster after the experimenter made the food reward larger and they would run slower after the food reinforcer was made smaller
      • Hull's (1943) version could not explain these data, so he added K, incentive to make his system work again
• Graphic Summary of Hull's System
  • 1943 Version (simplified)
    • _SE_R = _SH_R x D x V
      
  • 1952 Version (simplified)
  • _SE_R = _SH_R x D x V x K
• What about extinction and spontaneous recovery?
  • _SE_R = _SH_R x D x V x K - I_R - _SI_R - _SL_R
  • Reactive inhibition, I_R, builds up quickly, but goes away quickly (spontaneous recovery)
  • Conditioned inhibition, _SI_R, builds up slowly, but is permanent ( leads to extinction)
  • Threshold, _SL_R, accounted for the variability of learning acquisition

Learning Objective: Demonstrate what happens in Hull’s equation when H, D, V, or K have a zero value.

• Hull was an S-R theorist and used drive reduction as explanation for reinforcement
• His system largely abandoned following his death
• Kenneth Spence (Yale - Iowa Axis) was his most famous student
  • The Yale (Hull) --Iowa (Spence) Axis was the imaginary line between those two universities
    • For a period, many psychologists waggishly proclaimed that the discipline revolved around that axis.
    • After Hull's death psychology moved on and Hullian psychology became passé
• B. F. Skinner
  • Wanted to be a writer, failed
  • Reading Russell, Watson, and Pavlov inspired him to become a psychologist
  • Went to Harvard for PhD, returned there after stints at Minnesota and Indiana
  • He founded Radical Behaviorism or Behavior Analysis
  • He argued against a renewal of cognitive psychology and cognitve science (see chapter 14)
  • He invented a number of devices designed to aid his research or to apply his vision of behaviorism to the real world
    • Operant chamber (aka "Skinner Box")
      • rat: video
        • rat is pressing a lever and being reinforced with food
      • pigeon
        • pigeon is responding differentially to the words "peck" and "turn"
        • but, behavior was shaped gradually
    • Cumulative recorder
      • Recorded animal's operant activity
      • Cumulative recorder works this way: video
    • Pigeons guide bomb
      • Project Orcon: video
    • Air Crib
    • Teaching machine
    • Ping Pong Pigeons: video
  • Radical Behaviorism (aka Behavior Analysis)
    • First level: Darwin's Natural Selection
    • Second level: Operant conditioning
    • Third level: Cultural (verbal)
    • Rejects Mentalism
    • Selection by consequences (e.g., operant conditioning) or S^D -> R -> S^R

  BORDER WITH BIOLOGY (P. 333)

  Radical Behaviorism

• As far as radical behaviorists are concerned no border exists between psychology and biology.
• Borrowing the mechanism of selection from evolutionary theory, they argue that Radical Behaviorism operates at three levels.
• The first level is Darwin’s natural selection. Innate behaviors come from this level.
• The second level is operant conditioning that selects organisms’ emitted behaviors (or operants) through the action of the environment. Learned behaviors in animals and humans come from this level.
• The final level is cultural where humans’ verbal responses (also considered to be operants) are selected through the action of the linguistic communities people live in. Culturally based behaviors in humans come from this level.
• Radical Behaviorism interprets each type of selection at its own level with each possessing its own time frame.
  • So, phylogenetically based innate behaviors evolved over millions of years.
  • Learned behaviors in animals and humans develop over the course of the lifetimes of individual species members.
  • Culturally based behaviors also evolve over long periods, from as little as several lifetimes to thousands of years.
• In terms of theory, radical behaviorists confine themselves to the last two levels but take pains to demonstrate that at all three levels either genes, behaviors, or verbal behaviors are being selected mechanistically according to environmental consequences operating at their respective levels.

Learning Objective: Assess the scientific and practical contributions made by radical behaviorism. (Applied Behavior Analysis (e.g., token economies))

BORDER WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE (p. 334)

Token Economies in the Classroom

• Token economies, a type of applied behavior analysis, have been created for a wide variety of natural situations.
• All varieties are similar in that they use tokens (e.g., arbitrary items such as poker chips or stickers) as conditioned reinforcers.
• The tokens may be cashed in for primary reinforcers such as food according to published schedules.
• A classroom token economy is a form of contingency management where students may earn tokens for following explicit, behaviorally based classroom rules.
• Little and Akin-Little (2008) revealed that 73% of teachers surveyed had created their own set of classroom rules. Maggin et al. (2011) reviewed 24 studies of classroom token economies and concluded (p. 22),  
  • “students generally respond to these types of interventions” but that “practitioners need to be aware that the use of token economies in schools and classrooms likely requires careful oversight and systematic protocols for delivering generalized conditioned and secondary reinforcement”
• They also called for more rigorous research that better reported student characteristics and contexts in which token economies are designed and delivered. Despite the fact that managing behavioral contingencies in the real world is more difficult than doing so in the laboratory, many teachers do so successfully every day.

• Understanding Skinner
  • Believed in evolution and natural selection
  • Did not believe that ALL behavior could be modified by operant conditioning
  • Believed in individual differences
  • Believed that punishment should be avoided because:
    • it was temporary
    • could lead to negative emotional reactions
    • reinforced escape
  • Rejected idea of separate mental world (he substitutes "private behavior" for "mind"
  • Common Myths about Radical Behaviorism
    • the role of physiology and genetics in behavior
      • genetics do play a role
    • the extent to which all behavior can be conditioned
      • punishment and negative reinforcement are different processes
    • the uniqueness of the individual
      • individuals are unique and group data muddy those differences
    • the use of punishment in controlling behavior, and
      • positive reinforcement influences behavior better than does punishment
    • the existence of internal states
      • consciousness does exist

Learning Objective: Judge why so many students and faculty misunderstand Skinner’s position and fall victim to the five myths.

• Long-term successes of Radical Behaviorism
• Operant conditioning
• Schedules of reinforcement
• Utopian ideals
• Shaping: video
  • Skinner narrates as he reinforces a pigeon to turn a full circle in front of students in class
• No free will
• Single-N Designs
  • Small-N research is conducted in many areas of psychology, especially in clinical psychology and in Skinnerian behavior analysis. The number of participants varies from 1 (the smallest N) to larger numbers of participants. Dukes (1965) notes that small–N research is most appropriate for situations involving low variability between subjects or when the opportunity to research a specific situation is limited.
    • Dukes, W. F. (1965). N = 1, Psychological Bulletin, 64, 74-79.

Baseline: the environmental situation or context that exists before a treatment or intervention is applied.

Intervention: a specific alteration to the baseline condition designed to change the response rate initially observed.

• Radical Behaviorism Today
  • Isolated subgroup of psychologists
  • Very little interchange or communication with areas other than Radical Behaviorism
  • In Skinner's last public speech, he said, "Cognitive science is the creation-science of psychology, as it struggles to maintain the position of a mind or self."

Mentalism: explaining behavior by recourse to variables such as cognitions, memories, or motivations.

Applied Behavior Analysis: the design, application, and assessment of environmental modifications that lead to improvements in human behavior in the real world using principles derived from Radical Behaviorism.

• THEN AND NOW (p. 343)
• Rats in Psychology
• Lockard (1968, p. 734) noted that “the albino rat . . . occupied the laboratory as the result of a chance chain of circumstances.” Watson was one of the first beneficiaries having received his rats from a colony established earlier at Chicago. Tolman, Hull, and Skinner all used albino rats in their research. Tolman even went so far as to dedicate his book, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (1932) to the “white rat.” Around midcentury, comparative psychologist Frank Beach documented just how pervasive the use of the albino white rat or Rattus norvegicus had become. He wrote (Beach, 1950, p. 119):
  • one cannot escape the conclusion that psychologists : 
    • ...have tended to concentrate upon one animal species and one type of behavior in that species. Perhaps it would be appropriate to change the title of our journal to read “The Journal of Rat Learning.”
• The behavior in question was learning and his analysis of journal articles demonstrated that studies of conditioning and learning had exceeded all other topics in every year but one during the period spanning from 1927 to 1948. What has happened since then?
• The short answer is that both the number of animal species studied has increased and that the topics studied are wider too. In addition, the studies using white rats have declined precipitously.
  • Shettleworth (2009, p. 215) wrote:
    • “the classic criticisms of Beach and others regarding undue focus on a small number of species do not apply to contemporary research on comparative cognition . . . the range of problems being studied is also much broader than in the past.” Psychology has moved away from its once dominant animal model and today continues to study human behavior and a much broader range of animals, both for their own sake as well as to shed light on human behavior.

SUMMARY

• Neobehaviorism gradually replaced Watson’s Behaviorism.
• Tolman and Hull, created systems no longer part of modern psychology.
• B. F. Skinner’s system, Radical Behaviorism, is still a small part of modern psychology.
  
• Tolman's Purposive Behaviorism sought cognitive relationships between stimuli and between stimuli and responses.
• He believed that other animals and humans were goal directed.
• He believed that analyzing the cognitive maps inside the heads of organisms was possible.
  
• Hull, unlike Tolman, attempted to create an overarching system similar to those of Newton and Euclid.
• He believed that by seeking for and identifying the proper variables he could explain learning mechanistically.
  
• Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism was closer to biology than anything else.
• Using Darwinian logic, he believed that the environment selected consequences for organisms.
• For him, the environment contained two parts: a public part and a private part. Moreover, the same rules applied in both.
• Skinner was an environmental determinist who believed that much of psychology outside of his Radical Behaviorism was wrong or misguided.

GLOSSARY

Neobehaviorism: the modification of Watson’s Behaviorism that allowed for the experimental analysis of operationally defined unobservable variables related to cognitive states and emphasized the study of learning along with the use of animal models for human behavior.
Methodological Behaviorism: the most prevalent form in contemporary psychology, it requires the elucidation of observable stimuli and behaviors along with a commitment to formal theory testing.
Purposive Behaviorism: Tolman’s version of Neobehaviorism that emphasized goal-directed activity in animals and humans while only relying on objective behavioral data.
expectancy an internal state in which an organism anticipates an event based upon prior learning trials.
intervening variable: unobservable variables such as internal states or cognitions assumed to influence behavior.
hypothetico-deductive system: a system using logic derived from a small, restricted set of given truths used to deduce new, derived, and logically consistent statements. After, those deductions are tested experimentally. Statements experimentally confirmed are kept and the others are discarded.
mentalism: explaining behavior by recourse to variables such as cognitions, memories, or motivations.
baseline the environmental situation or context that exists before a treatment or intervention is applied.
intervention: a specific alteration to the baseline condition designed to change the response rate initially observed.
operationism: the idea that science is best understood as a public, operationally defined enterprise in which phenomena may only be analyzed via methods that yield concrete results.
applied behavior analysis: the design, application, and assessment of environmental modifications that lead to improvements in human behavior in the real world using principles derived from Radical Behaviorism.
shaping: the reinforcement of successive approximations of a final, desired response.

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